The Role of the Skeptic

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cubedemon6073
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23 Oct 2020, 11:15 pm

naturalplastic wrote:

cubedemon6073 wrote:

naturalplastic wrote:

JustFoundHere wrote:

naturalplastic wrote:

JustFoundHere wrote:

Can making difficulties making distinctions between skeptics and cynics be related to the Autism Spectrum?

No.

NTs are at least as sloppy about word usage as autistics if not more so.

CORRECTION (rephrasing) / ADDENDUM: Difficulties with subtle distinctions e.g., between skeptics and cynics can be common with the Autism Spectrum - Yet, NTs can also experience difficulties making those subtle distinctions.

I dont consider it "subtle" at all. The words are similar in sound, but vastly different in meaning. A "cynic" is someone who thinks that everything is motivated by self interest. A skeptic is someone who demands evidence for any assertion.

A "flat earth skeptic" would be someone who doubts the assertions of modern Flat Earthers, and demands that they present evidence for their claims that (a) the earth is flat, and (b) that there is this vast conspiracy to cover up this alleged 'truth' that the earth is flat.

A "flat earth cynic" is kind of meaningless as a phrase, but could mean someone who knows full well that the earth is round, but makes tons of money selling books and documentary films pushing flat earthism to exploit a gullible public.

Another thing that skeptics never really answer is what is considered valid evidence?

Skeptics say that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. But, what is considered extraordinary evidence? What would be valid evidence for a extraordinary claim?

Alien Abductions? How would one go about proving or disproving this legitimately in the skeptic's eyes? What evidence would be legit to a skeptic?

The word extraordinary is vague and subjective. What exactly would one have to do?

And, I could look all of this up myself but I want an answer from the skeptics here in their own words. I want to see what Fnord and others say what it is.

Dude ...you seem to be obsessed with that phrase coined by Carl Sagan, and started a thread about it several years ago- in which you asked everyone to explain the meaning of (what always seemed to me to be) the rather simple and straightforward phrase to you.

So ...I will now...pick up where we left off on that discussion.

Here is an example of the difference between ordinary claims, and extraordinary claims.

We dont know why our planet has a big moon orbiting around it. How did the Earth get that moon?

Here are examples of "ordinary claims" to explain it:

A. Moon was its own planet for a long time, but then got captured by Earth's gravity, and became our satellite.

B. Moon somehow budded off, or broke off, from the earth, and then went into orbit around the earth.

Those two theories have been the two competing explanations for the origin moon for decades. Right now the favored theory actually is a mix of both, but more of B. During the infancy of the solar system it was a violent shooting gallery of rocks hitting each other, and a medium sized planet (smaller than earth, but bigger than the moon) smacked into the earth, and pulverized the earth, but the pieces fell back together as two bodies, one big and one small. Earth and moon. And this little former crust of the earth pie is still orbiting us today.

But the point is that both competing theories only invoke things that are known to exist: planets, moons, gravitation, and such.

There is a third theory: that the moon is an artificial structure built by aliens from another solar system who use it as a base to spy on us. That is an extradordinary claim. What makes it extraordinary is that it invokes things that are not known to exist:aliens are not known to exist, interstellar space travel, is not known to be possible, and building artificial structures as big as the moon is not known to be possible. So you are explaining one unknown with at least three other unknowns. Which is a logical fallacy. Might even be true, but its still an extraordinary claim. So if you wanna be taken seriously with it you better go the extra distance to persuade us of it.

1. I don't even remember making a post years ago. Maybe I did. I do forget things sometimes. If I did I don't remember what answers I even received.

2. Just because something is simple for you doesn't mean it is simple for others.

3. Most of what you say here makes sense. I do have issues though.

4. When you say "known to exist" I ask known to exist to whom? In today's world we have primitive and uncontacted tribes. So, would they even grasp the concept of gravitational forces, the planet being roundish, even that we're on a planet, etc. What is their level of what they know to exist compared to modern day civilization's level of what they know to exist? Whom am I to prove it to?

5. I've spoken to people, mainly Christians, who say that we exist, the human body itself is extremely complex let alone the universe this is proof for a creator more specifically the God of the old and new testament. They say it's proof enough for them. Are they right? Therein lies the problem. What constitutes legitimate proof? You have given some good thought but I think it can be defined better because certain things are missing.

6. Let's say I wanted to prove Bigfoot existed. How would I do this? Again, what constitutes legitimate proof? If I take a picture of one that is clear is that good enough or would some of you skeptics say and claim that how do we know it's not a guy in a costume? What is the goal post I must achieve exactly to prove Big Foot exists?

7. Even James Randi who was excellent at debunking frauds never really defined what legitimate proof was and what was good enough evidence for something.

8. Don't get me wrong! I think a healthy dose of skepticism is great! I think it is great to ask questions. I think it is great to debunk flummery. I just think skeptics either assume to much common sense without explaining things that well or the philosophy of skepticism has flaws to it.

9. Finally, let's not talk to each other in this condescending way. I don't like it.

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23 Oct 2020, 11:45 pm

cubedemon6073 wrote:

This is what I think the role of skeptic should be.

A. Encourage Critical thought and Critical thinking. This also means to take great care to never to fall into the trap of scientism. Scientism is the idea that science is the only valid way to understand our existence, the universe and how we can best live our lives. Science is but a tool not the end all be all. And, sometimes this means to question the philosophy and logic behind science, the principles and methods as well in certain contexts. Can we understand and accept a truth as being true without having to prove it under scientific conditions?

B. Come up with methods and techniques or use current workable techniques to get of or reduce the amount of fraud that takes place. And, that includes deceiving oneself. The mind can fool itself as James Randi has demonstrated with Dousing and the Idemotor affect. If someone claims to be psychic then it is up to that supposed psychic to demonstrate their ability using the scientific method and double blind tests with other scientists help. It is not up to the scientist to disprove God, spiritualism, psychic abilities as these things in of themselves are unfalsifiable.

C. Be open to new ideas like ghosts and spirits but in particular situations test for mundane things. Example: Let's say one is hearing sounds or seeing things. Get everyone who has been in the house drug tested to see if they're under some kind of drug. Test for different gases that may produce hallucinations. Maybe some of the people have brain tumors. Test for that. The goal is not to disprove ghosts but to to see if one can factor out mundane causes such as I described. If one is feeling that eerie feeling get the place tested to determine if there is infrasound. Infrasound causes feelings of uneasiness and other eerie feelings.
What does everyone think so far?

I broadly support your ideas, they could be tweaked slightly
A. The scientific method is accepted to be the best approach to understanding our world/universe.
B. If the scientific method is followed properly then fraud should naturally be minimised
C. This point I agree 100%. it is infact the only aspect of the scientific method that most scientists do not follow because they refuse to examine the alternative data objectively

cubedemon6073
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24 Oct 2020, 6:11 am

cyberdad wrote:

cubedemon6073 wrote:

You are on point to my response to C.

naturalplastic
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24 Oct 2020, 9:03 am

6. Let's say I wanted to prove Bigfoot existed. How would I do this? Again, what constitutes legitimate proof? If I take a picture of one that is clear is that good enough or would some of you skeptics say and claim that how do we know it's not a guy in a costume? What is the goal post I must achieve exactly to prove Big Foot exists?

Give us all a break!

The answer to this question is an obvious no brainer. If you could capture a live bigfoot critter, and put him in the national zoo next door to the pandas then that would be proof that he exists. Simple. Done.

Failing that - shoot him and drape his carcass over the back of one your pack mules and bring THAT out of the woods so science can have an actual body. Or failing that ...if your slain bigfoot's family is surrounding you in the woods and is looking for revenge after you kill him and you all have to get out of the deep woods in a hurry (like the guys in Deliverence)...just whack off his arm and put that into an ice chest before you skedaddle outta there. Back in civilization the scientists can examine the arm and see that it ..."looks like a cross between a human arm and an ape arm and WTF IS this thing from?...OMG its from an unknown species of primate!" Even a body part would be proof. Something tangible.

Am talking actual proof. Not just: being open minded to the possibility that bigfoot exists. Actually proving that he is as real as chimps, and gorillas.

IMHO there is enough evidence to take it seriously as a possibility. And so does Jane Goodall, who has said that she thinks that critters like yeti, the orang pendang of Sumatra, the Vietnamese rock apes, and the American bigfoot could really exist. American anthropologist Dr. Melwood (I think thats his name) dubbed them "relic hominids". But even these experts dont roll over and surrender to the flakes of the world and say "bigfoot is real". Just that "we should be open to the possibility that he is real, and worthy of further investigation, and not just dismiss it out of hand".

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24 Oct 2020, 9:19 am

naturalplastic wrote:

With DNA analysis available, some extinct species have been recognised from single teeth.
Bring a bigfoot's hair to the lab and there are tools to determine what species it is, including the possibility of one unknown to science.
The hair samples attributed to Yeti turned out to have come from bears and dogs. https://www.livescience.com/61048-yeti- ... lyzed.html

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kraftiekortie
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24 Oct 2020, 9:27 am

If Bigfoot existed, there would be many more Bigfoots. There wouldn’t just be one solitary Bigfoot for over 100 years.

naturalplastic
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24 Oct 2020, 9:37 am

magz wrote:

naturalplastic wrote:

That would be the next best thing. An almost smoking gun.

I saw a TV show about a hunting lodge on a lake in Ontario that was supposedly plagued by trespassing bigfoots.

The residents and the TV experts teamed up and rigged a trap that involved placing a hidden plank studded with the pointed ends of screws for the creatures to step on. And sure enough they did get tissue samples on the tips of screws from an unfortunate creature who supposedly stepped on it. Two seperate samples at different times. The second one came up as just human DNA, and couldnt replicate the first. But that first one? It came up as human-like DNA but with some extra kinship to chimpanzees. Cue up the Twilight Zone theme music!

That is: from ...some humanlike primate that aint human. So ..THAT did strike me as an almost smoking gun. But like I said they couldnt replicate it. But it could still happen.

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24 Oct 2020, 8:06 pm

naturalplastic wrote:

I'm not as confident with bigfoot but there's a number of interesting theories. A British Veterinarian travelled to Nepal to test his hypothesis that equivalent of bigfoot in the Himalayas (the Yeti) was actually a form of hybrid polar/brown bear. When he lived among the local Sherpas he realised the bear theory was crap, the locals clearly knew the difference between a bear and a bipedal 8ft hairy anthropoid with white hair.

At the end of the TV series he came to the conclusion that native people have intergenerational memories of beings they came across when they first settled the Himalayas perhaps 50,000 years ago which means they could be either Neanderthals or some type of humanoid now extinct. Interestingly we know in the island of Flores in Indonesia that humans were infact living with a form of pygmy humanoid dubbed Flores Man or the hobbit, In pre-christian times Europeans also had memory of trolls, elves, dwarves and little people who could also have been early humanoids they came into contact with.

So the same theory could be applied to native Americans from whom the name Sasquatch (big foot) comes from. The memory of big foot in north America from 10,000 years in the past enters the imagination of European settlers who hear tales of bigfoot from the native people.

The one problem I have with the theory that bigfoot is a relic from early human contact is that many thousands of witnesses do claim to see large hairy humanoids in North America and going back to the native Americans and Sherpa of the Himalaya they claim these beings are still seen today.

I have watched a few episodes of the TV series bigfoot and they have picked up some interesting heat images of what appears to be a bipedal ape like creature deep in the forest using technology like Drones with cameras. While it may seem unlikely these large beasts still roam the North American forests there seems to be enough to keep an eye.

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25 Oct 2020, 1:30 am

That paragraph you quote with my name on it was actually written by Cubedemon. I was quoting him in order to answer his question. I copied and pasted what he said rather than use the quote thing...and then try to cut away the rest of the huge long post I took it from.

I have read the opposite about Yeti. That when Nepalese Sherpas see a local bear they will run and yell "Yeti! Yeti!..".

On the other hand there are some convincing eye witness accounts of Yeti.

Every culture has tales of little people, fairies, elves, etc. Africans, Polynesians, etc. And of giants too. These fairytale creatures dont have much resemblence to any known fossil hominids found in the regions. Its rare that preliterate peoples can retain historic memories for more than a few centuries, much less remember tales of things their ancestors saw TENS of thousands of years ago in the Upper Paleolithic when anatomical moderns encountered archaic hominids.

The exception is Homo Florensis which was a dwarf hominid that does vaguely resemble Hobbits (hence the journalistic nickname), and does resemble local Indonesian tales of little people in a superficial way. But that could just be coincidence.

Intriguingly Homo Florensis is also kinda similar to Orang Pendang, a kind of pymgy version of Bigfoot that locals see in the Jungles of Sumatra. An upright three foot tall humanlike furry creature. Which makes one wonder if it and the Florensis creature arent one and the same, and if it isnt still alive and living in remote jungles in the islands of Indonesia even today. Which brings us back to what Melwood, and Jane Goodall said. That these creatures folks see are not relic memories of archaic hominids, but are actual still living relic populations of archaic hominids.

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25 Oct 2020, 1:47 am

naturalplastic wrote:

Oops sorry

naturalplastic wrote:

I have read the opposite about Yeti. That when Nepalese Sherpas see a local bear they will run and yell "Yeti! Yeti!..".

Actually the nepali word for Yeti is "Minyat" which is different to bear. Interestingly the Tibetans across the border also use the same word to describe these hairy anthrapoids.

naturalplastic wrote:

Every culture has tales of little people, fairies, elves, etc. Africans, Polynesians, etc. And of giants too. These fairytale creatures dont have much resemblence to any known fossil hominids found in the regions. Its rare that preliterate peoples can retain historic memories for more than a few centuries, much less remember tales of things their ancestors saw TENS of thousands of years ago in the Upper Paleolithic when anatomical moderns encountered archaic hominids.

There's a general perception in the archaeological community that myth is something made up in the imaginations of superstitious people with over-active imaginations. What is perhaps more plausible is that our ancestors did not have experience with new things they could not understand or had the capacity to understand what they were seeing.

naturalplastic wrote:

Intriguingly Homo Florensis is also kinda similar to Orang Pendang, a kind of pymgy version of Bigfoot that locals see in the Jungles of Sumatra. An upright three foot tall humanlike furry creature. Which makes one wonder if it and the Florensis creature arent one and the same, and if it isnt still alive and living in remote jungles in the islands of Indonesia even today. Which brings us back to what Melwood, and Jane Goodall said. That these creatures folks see are not relic memories of archaic hominids, but are actual still living relic populations of archaic hominids.

Yes i have heard of Orang Pendek. I lived in Malaysia for a few years and came across villages where people believe these are not just apes but are spirit beings which is similar to how native americans see sasquatch.

cubedemon6073
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25 Oct 2020, 6:34 am

naturalplastic wrote:

1. There is a concept called human nature. Humans have biases, predjudices and their own agendas.

2. I can bring a live speciman or carcuss but if scientists or other "experts" may won't accept it due to biases, agendas or what not than what good was my proof?

3. Point is people are people no matter what title they have by their name even if they have a PHD and is a scientist.

4. I will define proof and evidence. Proof is whatever others especially experts say it is and what they choose to accept.

5. And, if you talk down to me one more time I will report you to the mods. I don't appreciate that and I will not tolerate disrespect from anyone on here and IRL. So, you have one more time to talk down to me!!

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25 Oct 2020, 6:46 am

Almost all the scientists I know would be thrilled by possibility of analysing Bigfoot remains, even if it ultimately turned out to be a half-decayed bear.

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naturalplastic
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25 Oct 2020, 6:57 am

If you capture a live bigfoot, and put it in the monkey house next to the gorillas, it would be accepted as fact that bigfoots exists.

cubedemon6073
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25 Oct 2020, 7:10 am

naturalplastic wrote:

If you capture a live bigfoot, and put it in the monkey house next to the gorillas, it would be accepted as fact that bigfoots exists.

Maybe it would! Maybe it would not!

BUT! BUT! Only if it does not go against any agendas!

By the way, do you remember Area 51 that skeptics kept denying despite the evidence. The CIA admitted that area 51 is real. It is used to test top secret military aircraft.

But, for a long time none of the military and the CIA would admit it existed despite the evidence brought. And, no, they didn't admit they had alien spacecraft there or did alien autopsies.

But, would they accept bigfoot? Or, would they do a denial like they did on they're made of meat?

It's not science and the scientific method I have issues with it's the the scientist the humans I have issues with. They're treated as though they're infallible and gods when they're not. They're human. They have their emotional baggage. They have their own agendas. They have the same psychology as humans because they're human. Skeptics put the scientist and other experts on a pedestal when they shouldn't be put on one.

And, I'm a big, huge fan of science, James Randi, scientific method and the philosophy of skeptism. My concern is when it becomes a quasi-religious belief system which others consider infallible and the scientists, experts and skeptics aren't questioned themselves. Bias is bias no matter who has it and what their title by their name is.

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25 Oct 2020, 7:49 am

cubedemon6073 wrote:

It's not science and the scientific method I have issues with it's the the scientist the humans I have issues with. They're treated as though they're infallible and gods when they're not. They're human. They have their emotional baggage. They have their own agendas. They have the same psychology as humans because they're human. Skeptics put the scientist and other experts on a pedestal when they shouldn't be put on one.

And, I'm a big, huge fan of science, James Randi, scientific method and the philosophy of skeptism. My concern is when it becomes a quasi-religious belief system which others consider infallible and the scientists, experts and skeptics aren't questioned themselves. Bias is bias no matter who has it and what their title by their name is.

When religion is put on the place of science, it's bad.
When science is put on the place of religion, it's bad.

Science works exactly because of systematic scepticism. Sometimes it can get a few decades to get out of a well-established misconception (see the history of phlogiston theory) but ultimately it gives tools to prune the existing knowledge of false claims. However, science needs time - for testing, replicating experiments, finding hidden assumptions, realizing biases - it never comes instantly.

Oh, and another things are journalist claiming that "scientists say". They usually have no idea what they are talking about.

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cubedemon6073
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25 Oct 2020, 7:57 am

magz wrote:

cubedemon6073 wrote:

Of course science works! And, science is the best method humanity has. I'm all for it.

I simply don't trust people and I simply have little to no love or trust for the establishment! From my impression and how I interpret their posts Those like NaturalPlastic and Fnord trust the establishment. I sure don't.

And, I will admit I may have certain emotional biases myself.

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